All-star 'Generals' ready for action

Catherine Avalone/The Middletown Press
Members of the the Middletown Generals (left to right) Jacob Texidor, 11, Antonio Milardo, 11, and Logan Wenzel, 10, pass a vintage baseball around while listening to local baseball historian and author Bill Ryczek tell the history of the Middletown Mansfields in the garden at the Middlesex Historical Society Thursday afternoon. Milardo, a first baseman, wrote a school paper on the Mansfields, Middletown's professional baseball team in the late 19th century. He suggested the city's Little League All-Star team name itself after the Mansfields' namesake: General Joseph Mansfield.

Catherine Avalone/The Middletown Press
Shortstop for the Middletown Generals, Lucas Radziewicz, 10, holds up his new team jersey in the garden at the Middlesex Historical Society Thursday afternoon. At right is Greyson Pizzonia. The team is named after General Joseph Mansfield.

MIDDLETOWN >> Thirteen all-star Little League players chosen from various city teams are heading to Maryland this weekend to compete in the Cal Ripken Experience tournament at Cal Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen.

The Middletown Generals are named after the Middletown Mansfields, the city's one and only professional sports franchise formed after the Civil War. The Mansfields were formed in 1866 and named for Gen. Joseph Mansfield, who was killed in the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, MD in 1862.

On Thursday, players and coaches met at the Gen. Joseph Mansfield House where players received their uniforms, and celebrated with pizza and soda.

The goal of the newly-formed team, according to head Coach Bill Tobin, is to be invited to the national tournament in Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

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City resident and renowned baseball historian Bill Ryczek was invited to the affair and gave an overview of the original Mansfields team.

For Tobin, the overview on the historical team was every bit as important as a full practice.

"What we're doing is more than playing baseball. I encourage you not to just play the game of baseball but learn about the game of baseball," Tobin told his players.

Players were excited about the tournament.

"Yeah I'm excited. Very excited," said Greyson Pizzonia, 10, and a fifth-grader at Moody School. Pizzonio plays pitcher and catcher for the Mansfields, and wants to be a baseball player when he grows up.

Jacob Texidor, 11, a sixth-grader at Cornerstone School in Manchester and pitcher and shortstop for the Generals, said he too is excited about the tournament.

It was the Generals' first baseman, Antonio Milardo, who came up with the idea to name the team after Mansfield.

According to Tobin, Milardo, 11 and a fifth-grader at St. Mary's School, wrote a paper on the original team for a school assignment.

"We didn't want to use the Mansfields because it was already a team name, so we went with 'The Generals,'" he said.

Some of what Milardo learned came from Ryczek, who gave the kids an idea of what it was like to play baseball in the 19th century.

Ryczek also had a baseball from the era, constructed of leather like modern baseballs but appearing larger than present day ones.

"The field they played on was up by CVH, overlooking the river. Fields were rough in those days -- there was no equipment to improve the field. There were bad hops," he said.

Ryczek said there was no equipment for players at that time, either.

"Catchers had no chest protection, shin guards or helmets. If someone was on base, the catcher would get up close to the batter in case of a steal, and they'd get hit in the face with foul balls. It was hard to be a baseball player; you had to be tough," he said.

Ryczek said scheduling games back in the day was much more informal, with team secretaries corresponding with each other to set up available dates.

That often led to confusion.

Ryczek told a story of a summer game between the Boston Red Sox and the Mansfields, when a team from New Jersey showed up for a game they thought they were playing against Middletown.

The Jersey team boarded a train back to their state.

The Mansfields formed in 1866 as an amature team, then ponied up the $10 to join the Major Leagues in 1872.

The Mansfields went broke after its first season and disbanded.

The team could not keep up with teams from major cities like New York, Boston or Philadelphia, Ryczek said, and they closed out their one and only major league season with a 5-19 record "which is not all that bad when you consider the teams they played," Ryczek said.

"As the next Generals team, I hope you do a better job and bring the championship back," he said.

The Generals will play 18 games over the weekend.

Tobin, along with his assistant coaches Rick Pizzonia, Pat Lenehan and Paul Radziewicz, are every bit as excited as the kids about the tournament.

"They're playing in a facility with full dugouts and they'll be on Ripken TV so their grandparents can watch them from home," Tobin said.

Parents of the players received a team hat ---- a navy blue baseball hat with two crossed gold bats, in the likeness of the gold crossed sword insignia on Union Civil War uniforms.